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You can’t really do that without investing heavily in cycling infrastructure like the Dutch do. Not just designing but redesigning roads when accidents happen.

You can’t really do that without investing heavily in cycling infrastructure like the Dutch do. Not just designing but redesigning roads when accidents happen. A city like Seattle attempts to put the burden on drivers in theory, but crappy road designs (including lots of occluding on street parking) with little to no change when accidents occur often move incident sentiment firmly into the “not much the driver could have done” accident category.

consp 2y ago
Which is why bad road design is a mitigating factor. You can technically get away with speeding in the Netherlands if the road design is very inadequate. This happened a a few times when most cities were simply spamming "30kph" signs everywhere and did not put road furniture in place to limit the speed. They quickly learned that was not enough as drivers fought their tickets. It's not as black and white as a mentioned but you get the jist of it. You thus always need incentive for the municipality to fix the road design.
USiBqidmOOkAqRb 2y ago
>You can’t really do that without investing heavily in cycling infrastructure With the insane amount of investment put towards appeasing cars [sic] I think it's just a matter of prioritizing.
Reason077 2y ago
> "You can’t really do that without investing heavily in cycling infrastructure" Building cycle paths/cycle lanes is very cheap compared to building motor vehicle lanes.
- seanmcdirmid 2y ago
  Not building good ones. You have right aways to consider also, often your best option is to build on an existing road, but if you don’t get rid of onstreet parking on that road it’s a huge hot mess.
- consteval 2y ago
  Yes, but in the US motor vehicle infrastructure is seen as a given, whereas cycling infrastructure is seen as a privilege.
WalterBright 2y ago
In the Seattle area, cyclists routinely wander out of the cycling lane on the RHS into the car lane, and wander back, and some are determined to ride on the 4 inch stripe separating the two. None of them ever look over their shoulder before doing this. A couple weeks ago one swerved out of the bike lane so he could draft behind me. Around the same time, oncoming cyclists (a cohort) not only wandered out of the bike lane, they wandered into my lane (the oncoming traffic lane). I had to brake hard. I do not understand what is the matter with them. Brain damage? I've ridden a bike on the roads for decades, I always rode as if the cars could not see me. The people who lay out the paths must be high, as there are multiple places where the bike lane and the car lane swap sides in an X. Don't they remember those kid slot car toys that had an X piece of track for the purpose of crashing the slot cars? These aren't kids, they're adults.
- gwervc 2y ago
  Living in European cities with multimodal transportations, what I fear the most are cyclists. Cars drive on very clearly delimited space, respect the driving code quite properly and are visible and audible from far away. Bicycles on the other hands drive fast, both on road and pedestrian ways with a sense of entitlement that they somehow have priority over pedestrians. They are also harder to spot. My worst fear when walking in the city are those Uber Eats guys riding huge electrical bike and going as fast as possible. An impact with that is a sure way to hospital if not worse.
  - WalterBright 2y ago
    As a pedestrian, I had several near collisions with cyclists in London.
    - foldr 2y ago
      I find cyclists in London annoying too, but the vast majority of serious injuries to pedestrians are caused by cars. As proof, I cite this amusingly stupid 2024 Daily Mail article which notes that "more than 30 pedestrians have been killed by cyclists over the past decade". https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13396307/The-rise-deadly-cyclists-Chilling-number-pedestrians-mowed-reckless-riders-Sir-Iain-Duncan-Smith-plans-close-shocking-legal-loophole-allows-bike-users-speed-impunity.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13396307/The-rise-d...
guappa 2y ago
The dutch also invested in having a completely flat nation.
- tromp 2y ago
  They're quite rare but we do have some steep hills, like this 22% one: https://www.google.com/maps/@50.8471239,5.8741469,3a,90y,196.62h,95.9t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1spvpaskBB8Z9ItaWJq4yj9w!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?authuser=1&coh=205409&entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI0MDkxNi4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D https://www.google.com/maps/@50.8471239,5.8741469,3a,90y,196...
- GateCrasher 2y ago
  Which is a valid, but much less important argument since the advent of the electric bike
zezcat 2y ago
please never change to how the dutch do it. If you do not cycle in the netherlands, it's a nightmare. The cyclists don't obey traffic laws, hell they don't even look down roads most of the times for oncoming traffic.

consp 2y ago

Which is why bad road design is a mitigating factor. You can technically get away with speeding in the Netherlands if the road design is very inadequate. This happened a a few times when most cities were simply spamming "30kph" signs everywhere and did not put road furniture in place to limit the speed. They quickly learned that was not enough as drivers fought their tickets. It's not as black and white as a mentioned but you get the jist of it. You thus always need incentive for the municipality to fix the road design.

USiBqidmOOkAqRb 2y ago

>You can’t really do that without investing heavily in cycling infrastructure With the insane amount of investment put towards appeasing cars [sic] I think it's just a matter of prioritizing.

Reason077 2y ago

> "You can’t really do that without investing heavily in cycling infrastructure" Building cycle paths/cycle lanes is very cheap compared to building motor vehicle lanes.

seanmcdirmid 2y ago
Not building good ones. You have right aways to consider also, often your best option is to build on an existing road, but if you don’t get rid of onstreet parking on that road it’s a huge hot mess.
consteval 2y ago
Yes, but in the US motor vehicle infrastructure is seen as a given, whereas cycling infrastructure is seen as a privilege.

WalterBright 2y ago

In the Seattle area, cyclists routinely wander out of the cycling lane on the RHS into the car lane, and wander back, and some are determined to ride on the 4 inch stripe separating the two. None of them ever look over their shoulder before doing this. A couple weeks ago one swerved out of the bike lane so he could draft behind me. Around the same time, oncoming cyclists (a cohort) not only wandered out of the bike lane, they wandered into my lane (the oncoming traffic lane). I had to brake hard. I do not understand what is the matter with them. Brain damage? I've ridden a bike on the roads for decades, I always rode as if the cars could not see me. The people who lay out the paths must be high, as there are multiple places where the bike lane and the car lane swap sides in an X. Don't they remember those kid slot car toys that had an X piece of track for the purpose of crashing the slot cars? These aren't kids, they're adults.

gwervc 2y ago
Living in European cities with multimodal transportations, what I fear the most are cyclists. Cars drive on very clearly delimited space, respect the driving code quite properly and are visible and audible from far away. Bicycles on the other hands drive fast, both on road and pedestrian ways with a sense of entitlement that they somehow have priority over pedestrians. They are also harder to spot. My worst fear when walking in the city are those Uber Eats guys riding huge electrical bike and going as fast as possible. An impact with that is a sure way to hospital if not worse.
- WalterBright 2y ago
  As a pedestrian, I had several near collisions with cyclists in London.
  - foldr 2y ago
    I find cyclists in London annoying too, but the vast majority of serious injuries to pedestrians are caused by cars. As proof, I cite this amusingly stupid 2024 Daily Mail article which notes that "more than 30 pedestrians have been killed by cyclists over the past decade". https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13396307/The-rise-deadly-cyclists-Chilling-number-pedestrians-mowed-reckless-riders-Sir-Iain-Duncan-Smith-plans-close-shocking-legal-loophole-allows-bike-users-speed-impunity.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13396307/The-rise-d...

guappa 2y ago

The dutch also invested in having a completely flat nation.

tromp 2y ago
They're quite rare but we do have some steep hills, like this 22% one: https://www.google.com/maps/@50.8471239,5.8741469,3a,90y,196.62h,95.9t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1spvpaskBB8Z9ItaWJq4yj9w!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?authuser=1&coh=205409&entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI0MDkxNi4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D https://www.google.com/maps/@50.8471239,5.8741469,3a,90y,196...
GateCrasher 2y ago
Which is a valid, but much less important argument since the advent of the electric bike

zezcat 2y ago

please never change to how the dutch do it. If you do not cycle in the netherlands, it's a nightmare. The cyclists don't obey traffic laws, hell they don't even look down roads most of the times for oncoming traffic.